Europe’s summer of discontent reveals travel sector labour crisis

Europe’s summer of discontent reveals travel sector labour crisis

After 21 years as a service agent at Air France, Karim Djeffal left his job during the COVID-19 pandemic to start his own job-coaching consultancy.

"If this doesn't work out, I won't be going back to the aviation sector," says the 41-year-old bluntly. "Some shifts started at 4 a.m. and others ended at midnight. It could be exhausting."

Djeffal offers a taste of what airports and airlines across Europe are up against as they race to hire thousands to cope with resurgent demand, dubbed "revenge travel" as people seek to make up for vacations lost during the pandemic.

Leading operators have already flagged thousands of openings across Europe. But the industry says European aviation as a whole has lost 600,000 jobs since the start of the pandemic.

Yet the hiring blitz can’t come fast enough to erase the risk of cancelled flights and long waits for travellers even beyond the summer peak, analysts and industry officials say.

The summer when air travel was supposed to return to normal after a two-year pandemic vacuum is in danger of becoming the summer when the high-volume, low-cost air travel model broke down - at least in Europe's sprawling integrated market.

Labour shortages and strikes have already caused disruption in